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In April, Interact, Intersect, Inter-art: Creative Collaborations in Brain Health brought together artists, academics, and innovators at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh to explore potential research collaborations between the arts and brain health. In our definition of ‘creative arts’, we included a wide range of disciplines across music, dance, storytelling, poetry, and beyond. Throughout the course of the day, we heard from speakers representing the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Scottish Ballet, Deepness Dementia Radio, National Galleries of Scotland, and Singing for Health Scotland. This included existing collaborative work, such as Scottish Ballet’s dementia-friendly Time to Dance and Dr Emily Davis’ work on Dance for Living Well with Multiple Sclerosis. Alongside the physical benefits of movement and dance, these discussions highlighted the importance of the interactive and social elements of joining and participating in a class. For Brain Health, we welcomed researchers, clinicians, and others who work on dementia or brain health across the life course, including those with lived experience. Professor Susan Shenkin presented on behalf of ENRICH (Enabling Research in Care Homes) Scotland and discussed the importance of research taking place within care homes. As a network of staff, residents, and researchers, ENRICH facilitates the design and delivery of research to improve the quality of life and care for residents. read more
We were also joined by Karen Taylor, co-founder and co-ordinator of Deepness Ltd. As the wife of Ron Coleman, co-founder and Chairperson of Deepness Ltd., she has first-hand experience of living with someone with dementia. Ron established Deepness Ltd as a space for people living with dementia to come together and live well with dementia through the media platform of the website. He has since made a life of writing poetry, plays, music, and books as he continues to thrive while living with dementia. Looking ahead to possibilities, Professor Louise Harris outlined the potential for collaboration in audiovisual composition in the arts and science, sharing her existing work on exploring simultaneous audio-visualisation as a means of both data exploration and compositional structuring. Presentations and discussions allowed an exploration of opportunities for practice, art and research in brain health and dementia to come together. The day concluded with breakout sessions to discuss next steps and initial ideas for collaboration. Following the event, we are pleased to announce that we are accepting applications for seed funding projects! Up to £5k is available for research-focused applications that form new collaborations, support people who are new to brain health research, and consider diversity and inclusion issues. Find out more and apply here.
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In February 2024, the Brain Health ARC, supported by Race Against Dementia, launched a national competition inviting researchers to submit proposals to access the Global Alzheimer’s Platform Foundation (GAP)’s Bio-Hermes-001 dataset, the most comprehensive set of dementia biomarker data from ground-breaking blood testing studies for Alzheimer’s disease. Over 40 submissions were received in just over a year and in March 2025, the Data Summit showcased some of these projects in a hybrid Glasgow-based event. “Dementia progresses quickly, but traditional research moves slowly. We wanted our Data Challenge to challenge this assumption. We have shown that with collaboration, support, and a little hard work we can do things differently. Through working in partnership with GAP, and the dementia research community, in a matter of months, we have completed a portfolio of high quality, impactful research,” said Professor Terry Quinn, Director of the Brain Health ARC. The one-year timeline is extraordinary in Alzheimer’s research, where studies and clinical trials typically take years. The ambitious timeline has now proven that researchers could take an agile approach in Alzheimer’s research, demonstrating that urgency is possible. read more
"It was an honour for GAP to collaborate with the Brain Health ARC and the Alzheimer's Disease Data Initiative to undertake the Bio-Hermes Data Challenge Summit. Professor Quinn and his colleagues organised the Challenge in six months and attracted a multi-disciplined group of the UK's leading researchers to interrogate the Bio-Hermes database with the assistance of ADDI to explore novel hypotheses related to Alzheimer's and related dementias. Over the ensuing year, competing teams advanced their research with unparalleled speed and rigor." said GAP President John Dwyer. Research teams showcased their concepts for a chance to win in three categories: poster presentation, quick-fire project presentation, and oral presentation. Below are the winners along with titles of their projects: Winning Poster Presentation:
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The Brain Health Alliance for Research Challenges is supported by the Scottish Funding Council.
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